Banana empire heir Daniel Noboa, 35, has become Ecuador's youngest-ever president-elect, vowing to "restore peace" to a country ravaged by a bloody drug gang war.
After the electoral authority declared him the victor and socialist rival Luisa Gonzalez conceded defeat, Mr Noboa vowed that "tomorrow we begin work to rebuild a country that has been severely hit by violence, corruption and hatred."
Long a peaceful haven between major cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has seen violence explode in recent years as enemy gangs with links to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control.
The fighting has seen at least 460 inmates massacred in prisons since February 2021 and more bloodshed on the streets.
In August, the violence claimed the life of anti-corruption and anti-cartel presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was shot dead after a campaign speech.
He had been polling in second place.
A state of emergency was declared after the former journalist's assassination, and Mr Noboa and Ms Gonzalez both campaigned, and voted, in bullet-proof vests and with heavy security details.
Yesterday, Mr Noboa told supporters in his home town of Olon in the southwest his goal was "to restore peace... to bring back education to the youth" and create jobs.
Ecuadorans voted for ten hours with no reports of violence, watched over by some 100,000 police and soldiers.
The main concerns of Ecuadorans, according to opinion polls, are crime and violence in a country where the murder rate quadrupled in the four years to 2022.
Mr Noboa, who obtained some 52% of the vote according to a near-complete count, was elected to only 16 months in office to complete the term of incumbent Guillermo Lasso, who called a snap vote to avoid possible impeachment for alleged embezzlement.
Under the law, Mr Noboa can run again for the 2025-29 presidential term, and the one after that.
Both runoff candidates were relative unknowns in politics.
Mr Noboa is the son of one of Ecuador's richest men, who himself has five failed presidential bids to his name.
The president-elect, whose only political experience is two years as a MP, calls himself "centre-left" but embraces neoliberal economic thinking.
He ran on the ticket of the brand-new National Democratic Action alliance, which incorporates parties from the centre and left of the political spectrum.
Ecuador has a poverty rate of 27%, with a quarter of the population unemployed or holding down an informal job.
Opinion polls list unemployment as voters' second concern.
Mr Noboa reiterated that he intends to "give progress to a country... that has all the elements to be a global example."
Ms Gonzalez was the handpicked candidate of socialist ex-president Rafael Correa, who governed from 2007 to 2017 and lives in exile in Belgium to avoid serving an eight-year prison term for corruption - another major concern in the country.
From eight candidates, Ms Gonzalez took the most votes in the first round in August with 34%, followed by Noboa with 23%.
Yesterday, she offered her "profound congratulations" to Mr Noboa, "because this is democracy."
Addressing supporters in Quito, Ms Gonzales also said she would not be claiming fraud.
With 13 MPs in his corner out of 137 in parliament, Mr Noboa will not have an absolute majority backing his legislative projects, and with only 16 months in office, will face an uphill battle to push through any reforms, analysts say.
Voting is compulsory for 13.4 million eligible voters in the country of about 18 million, and the election authority said turnout was above 82%.
After images on social media appeared to show a person filling out multiple ballots in favor of Mr Noboa, the head of the National Electoral Commission promised an "immediate" investigation.
